This has been troubling me for some time, and I'd really appreciate the input of other professionals.
Short background: I started programming when my parents bought me my first computer in 1988 (at ...

Just read the question about the Big Rewrites and I remembered a question that I've been wanting answered myself.
I have a horrible project passed down to me, written in old Java, using Struts 1.0, ...

My employer is hiring a programmer - more specifically, I am interviewing and selecting the person who will fill the position.
The best candidate right now is far more qualified than I am, older, and ...

I am looking for an expert programmer to help solve a difficult situation.
The interviews so far have been surprisingly disappointing. The best candidate so far is a very experienced programmer who ...

Having worked on a failed project is one of the few things that most programmers have in common, regardless of language used, industry or experience.
These projects can be great learning experiences, ...

I am computer engineering student. I've been thinking about
how I can handle a big project. What should be my first step to reach my goal in a more efficient and effective way?
When I come up with a ...

Almost all developers who work for a large corporation find themselves on the wrong side of site blocking software. It can be both frustrating ("Just let me read that damn blog!") and helpful ("Woah! ...

I'm an inexperienced programmer. I have been assigned to develop a Firefox plugin with no prior experience. So I followed the tutorial at MDN. I learned so many things, it's exciting and overwhelming ...

I know pair programming is an agile software development technique in which two programmers work together at one workstation. One, the driver, writes code while the other, the observer, reviews each ...

Getting into zone is a pleasurable and fruitful process. We produce good source code and we get lots of satisfaction from our work done while being in the zone. But, how does one get into the 'zone'? ...

As programmers, we often take incredible pride in our skills and hold very strong opinions about what is 'good' code and 'bad' code.
At any given point in our careers, we've probably had some legacy ...

A few years ago I've developed a program that has a steady group of users. It became quite popular and now we have close to two million downloads on Download.com.
At first I provided the application ...

On my resume, I list myself as having "7 years of hands-on experience programming in C".
To clarify, I am a self-taught C programmer with some college courses thrown in the mix. I've worked on some ...

I am curios to use .NET for some web applications (e.g. ASP.NET MVC 2). However my budget is limited so I would like to use Mono on Linux. I have never used Mono before, and I haven't read about any ...

I am student currently attending my fourth year at a Swedish university and will, if all goes well, take my Master's degree in Computer Science in winter of 2011. It is a respectable university, at ...

How should older programmers respond when interviewed and 'confronted' with questions similar to "we are a young bunch, will you be able to fit into our culture?".
What about the experience an older ...

What are your common gripes about junior developers that join your team or whom you have to work with? Obviously they are inexperienced so you can't expect them to know everything, but what skills are ...

I'm going through a rough time. I'm a CS student at UIUC, which I hear is one of the top schools for CS. I love computers and programming. I've been pretty much doing it my whole life. I'm a freshmen ...

I wanted to name this topic as "Education vs. Experience", but this topic already exists. I've read that discussion and though what I'd like to ask is related with that topic, the question is quite ...

I've been on the constant road of learning new concepts in OOP, Software Design, Architecture, etc. But there are times when you are in a team where those concepts are foreign to them and they don't ...

I came across the Ur/Web project during my search for web frameworks for Haskell-like languages. It looks like a very interesting project done by one person.
Basically, it is a domain-specific purely ...

Have you come across a super programmer? What identifies him or her as such, compared to "normal" experienced/great programmers?
Also. how do you deal with a person in your team who believes he is a ...

Every time I've finished a project, there is always something that I've learned (otherwise I don't find it very motivating). But I can't remember everything, and much later I may stumble across the ...